DANGEROUS PLAY

A field hockey captain guides her tightknit team in secret missions to save girls from predatory boys.

In this contemporary feminist debut, Zoe Alamandar is a disciplined, goal-oriented team captain with an ambitious plan for her junior year: lead her team to the New York State Field Hockey Championship, garner the attention of college scouts, and earn a scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill, which has a top-ranked team. Zoe; her co-captain, Ava; and their hand-picked team are off to a strong start when Zoe is sexually assaulted at a football player’s alcohol-fueled party. At first, Zoe doesn’t tell Liv, her best friend and teammate—and she doesn’t want to burden her parents, who are dealing with her father’s chronic pain from a serious accident. Instead, she channels her confusion, hurt, and anger into the team’s parkour sessions and late-night expeditions to rescue girls from would-be abusers at parties. The exploration of Zoe’s post-assault behavior is thoughtful and believable, particularly how she distances herself from a crush, fixates on saving other girls from the same fate, and raises awareness about toxic masculinity and rape culture. The author’s frequent use of curse-word stand-ins—fockey, fock, focking, and absofockinglutely—come to feel distracting and corny with repetition. Zoe is White; their names cue Ava as Latinx and Liv as Chinese American.

A timely and absorbing character study of a sexual assault survivor.